Again, not defending the position, just trying to speculate from the other person's shoes.  

The case makes it clear that we all need to have "living wills" to preserve our choice in these matters.  Don't know if there was one in this case and they are trying to thwart it?

I mean, it starts with punishing kids so that they're obedient and submissive to their parents as directed by God. And it evolves to metaphorically attacking God in the name of whatever.  Puzzling as the "whatever" may be, I think the role reversal, where it's God getting punished is what's really bizarre and telling here.  Ultimately none of this is about God. It's the punishment, stupid!

I think even most fundies (at least the ones I've talked to in OK) don't have problems with passive euthanasia, as long as there is a clear advanced directive/living will.  

And having gone through this with my grandmother (Alzheimer's), I know what a terrible, terrible decision this is for a family, even when there IS a living will (my grandmother was quite explicit).  I can't imagine making this decision when there isn't one, much less having it made by someone else (and isn't there something about the husband as well, like he wants to remarry, and they think that's giving him the incentive here?  I don't remember).

As for Mel, he should mind his own f---ing business.

I feel very sorry for Terri's parents, who can't bear to let her go. Yet my sympathy is mitigated by the way they have recently resorted to such desperate tactics as claiming their son-in-law is afraid Terri will recover sufficiently to accuse him of causing her condition by physical abuse. No such suspicion was ever voiced before and no significant medical evidence exists to support it. The parents are grasping at straws.

Why doesn't Michael Schiavo just let his in-laws take over his wife's care? He claims to believe that she would not want to continue to exist in her current state and petitioned the state court to judge his testimony and that of others to the effect of his wife's wishes. The court ruled that there was ample grounds that Michael was correctly representing his wife's intentions and gave him permission to terminate her feeding and hydration. It was not a snap decision by the husband, but a fully adjudicated proceeding whose outcome bitterly disappointed Terri's parents. They have fought it ever since.

Michael Schiavo has turned down offers of money to divorce Terri and permit her custody to revert to her parents. This is consistent with his claim that he would be neglecting his wife's wishes if he did so. Yet it would be the easy way out if Michael just wanted some quick bucks and freedom to marry his longtime girlfriend (with whom he has begun a family and whom he plans to marry when he is eventually free to remarry).

A big question is whether Terri is really "alive" in any meaningful sense other than bodily function. Her parents have released videotapes that purport to show Terri reacting to vocal and visual stimuli, which most doctors have said she cannot do. The central portion of Terri's brain, the cerebral cortex, was destroyed by oxygen starvation during the cardiac arrest that caused her condition. That's the part of the brain we think with. Her autonomic system continues to function, making her heart beat, her lungs breath, etc. Doctors say that Terri moves and makes noises at random. I don't know how many hours of videotape her family had to go through to find the few minutes they show people that appear to show reactions. Since many folks think a "vegetative state" is like a coma, I'm sure the videos shock people when they see her mumbling, chuckling, blinking, or turning her head, but she apparently does that all the time. The court has accepted the medical diagnosis of "persistent vegetative state" and finds no significant chance of any improvement, no matter how much time and therapy is devoted to the case. Unless Terri's religious advocates can pray God into giving her a brain again, this is not going to change.

This is a bad situation, made worse now that it's been politicized by bad blood between family members and opportunists who see a platform from which to preach their dogmas. I don't think Michael Schiavo would be going to all this trouble if he didn't actually believe he was following his wife's wishes, which in written form would have prevented this entire circus. Others may believe differently, but it would be nice if those who do have credible evidence for their conclusions.

If you want a comprehensive timeline for the events in the Schiavo controversy and details about the medical evaluations and court rulings, the best single site is probably Abstract Appeal. Go check it out if you have the patience.

Why not just allow his will?

I don't understand people who seek to influence God's will or actually think they understand Him so that they can speak for him with certainty.

We know about as much about God's will as we know about all the grains of sand on a beach. Take all our knowing and we know only a tiny speck of what God is and what his will is.

I might accept a million dollars to torture my mother-in-law but probably not my wife, mom, dad, brother, or sister.  

I think custody should be awarded to Terry's parents since I understand Michael wants to move on.

As technology improves those numbers are going to increase. How many tens of thousands of people are we willing to keep alive indefinitely, decade after decade after decade?

I suspect that every insurance company in America has written exclusions into their policies to limit their financial obligation to a limited term of say five years for comas or vegetative states.

A related problem is that something like 80% of the cost of Medicare is spent keeping seniors alive in the last year of their life. This cost is also going to increase, and probably dramatically.

Is there some point when pre-natal care and infant mortality becomes as important or more important than people who are arguably already dead? Is there some point where health care for uninsured people become more important than people who are arguably dead? It seems almost gruesome to me to keep dead people on life support for as long as it is medically possible.

After somebody is brain-dead, how do you decide they are finally dead? How much money, for how many decades, do you spend keeping them semi-dead? We do not have unlimited resources for medical care. Is this where we want to focus limited resources for medical care?

At some point it is necessary to literally give up the ghost.

The sad part of this whole thing is that there is a very legitimate question of who has a right to sign off terminating a life.

Now, I'm a bitter-ender when it comes to life.  I definitely think a conscious person of any age of consent should be able to choose otherwise.

And, then you have this case, where to be blunt, no one really knows.

I personally side with the notion she should be kept alive.

I don't think its any different than the anti-death penalty argument that says that a slim chance of doing the wrong thing justifies not following through with it.

In this case, there is a chance that if you disconnect her, you're doing the wrong thing and going against her wishes.

What I object to most is the massive politicization of this case.  This case isn't about Terry Schiavo's choice or lack thereof (a rather libertarian argument).

This case is about a blanket effort to make the right-to-die movement look evil (a rather orthodox religious argument).  

The right-to-die movement needs to seize this as a clear chance to stake out opposition to this sort of thing.  They need to make a clear and specific point that this choice is a personal, conscious decision built on American notions of libertarianism.

Anything that doesn't meet that test has nothing to do with the right to die.

I can (somewhat) understand her parent's inability to let her go.  But there is ZERO chance of her coming back to life.  That body lying in that bed is just a shell where Terri used to live (and is being artificially kept "alive").  She's gone.  Her parents are causing themselves and everyone who loved Terri more grief than is necessary.  They need to move on for their own well-being as well as everyone else's.